Printing machines



April 5, 1955 H. T. ALUMBAUGH PRINTING MACHINES Filed April 28, 1952 United States Patent PRINTING MACHINES Harris T. Alumbaugh, Arcadia, Calif.

Application April 28, 1952, Serial No. 284,775

4 Claims. (Cl. 101-301) M y invention relates to printing machines, and has particular reference to a machine for use with rubber stamps for positively positioning in like predetermined locations on each of a plurality of sheets of stock the inked impression made by application of the stamp.

Certain printing operations, because of the small number of copies required or as a temporary expedient, are oftentimes most conveniently and economically carried out with hand-operated printing devices of which the conventional and well-known rubber stamp is a typical example. Small or newly-established businesses frequently use rubber stamps for printing letterheads, billheads, return addresses on envelopes and the like, and such stamps are universally used to fill in blanks in printed forms, as for example, in printing the purchasers name and address in the box provided therefor on Patent Office coupons for patent copies.

Such uses of hand-operated printing devices are attended by numerous disadvantages such as the frequent misalignment of the inked impression relative to the edges of the sheet or the blanks in a printed form, and a lack of uniformity in the density of the inked impression, all of which detract from the appearance of the printed sheet and, in extreme cases, require a certain'percentage of printed sheets to be discarded.

Attempts to minimize the disadvantages above mentioned by the exercise of great care in the manipulation of the rubber stamp or other printing device result in the expenditure of an undue amount of time with a corresponding increase in cost and inconvenience.

It is therefore an object of my invention to provide a printing machine which utilizes a hand-operated printing device such as a rubber stamp, and which, by reason of certain novel features of construction, overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages.

It is another object of my invention to provide a printing machine of the character set forth in the preceding paragraph which is arranged for hand operation and which is of simple construction and small size, permitting the machine to be manufactured at low cost and, when not in use, to be stored in a small space such as in a desk drawer.

It is a further object of my invention to provide a printing machine of the character described in the preceding paragraphs which includes a bed for supporting a sheet of stock and a movable carrier serving to support a plate such as a rubber stamp for movement between a predetermined location on the bed and a second location spaced from the bed and adapted to accommodate a device for inking the plate.

It is also an object of my invention to provide an apparatus of the character set forth in the preceding paragraph which includes stop means adjustably secured to the bed for indexing the position of each sheet relative to the bed.

It is an additional object of my invention to provide a printing machine of the character hereinbefore described in which the carrier is mounted on the bed for adjustment of said predetermined location of the impression made by the plate.

It is a still further object of my invention to provide a machine of the character described in the foregoing paragraphs which utilizes similar and interchangeable mounting means for the stop means and for the plate carrier to thereby provide maximum flexibility in arrangement and adjustment to accommodate different sizes of sheets and different locations of the inked impressions.

' machine.

2,705,454 Patented Apr. 5, 1955 Other objects and advantages of my invention will become apparent upon a consideration of the following specification, read in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a printing machine constructed in accordance with a preferred embodiment of my invention;

Fig. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view taken substantially along the line 2-2 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary cross-sectional view taken substantially along the line 33 of Fig. 2; and

Fig. 4 is an exploded perspective view illustrating the construction and arrangement of parts used to adjustably mount the stops and carrier on the bed of the printing machine shown in Fig. 1.

Referring to the drawings, I have illustrated in Fig. 1 a preferred embodiment of my invention as comprising a fiat bed 10 adapted to receive and support a sheet of stock, envelope, blank form, or other support upon which the printed impression is to be made. The bed 10 is provided with three adjustable stops 11, 12, and 13 which are used to index successive sheets and cause the inked impression to be made in the same predetermined location on each of such successive sheets.

The inked impression is made by a plate of suitable form indicated generally by the reference character 14, a conventional rubber stamp being chosen for illustration in Fig. l. The plate or rubber stamp 14 is supported by a movable carrier indicated generally at 15 which is in turn adjustably secured to the bed 10. As is shown in in Fig. 2, the carrier 15 supports the plate 14 for arcuate reciprocal movement between an inking position represented by the dotted line showing 14a in Fig. 2, and a printing position represented by the broken line showing 14b in Fig. 2. The plate 14 is moved between the described positions by a hand operation, the plate or stamp 14 being provided with a suitable handle 16 for this purpose. In so moving between the two described positions, the plate or stamp 14 is held against rotation so that in both of the positions 14a and 14b the type face carried by the plate 14 is directed downwardly.

It will be understood that the carrier 15 is so positioned on the bed 10 that the printing position 14b of the stamp is located within the periphery of the bed], while the inking position 14a is situated outside the confines of the bed 10, permitting an inking device such as a conventional inked stamp pad 16 to be placed beside the bed 10 in a position to be engaged by the type face of the plate 14 in the inking position. In operation, the stamp 14 is first moved to the inking position 14a to apply an appropriate quantity of ink to the type face. The stamp 14 is then moved to the printing position 14b to transfer to the sheet of printing stock the ink carried by the previously inked type face. This operation is repeated with a new sheet of stock being placed upon the bed between successive operations.

The bed 10 is preferably made of a rigid lightweight material, and is provided with a hard, smooth upper surface. While various materials are suitable for making the bed 10, I prefer to use a laminated material because of the stiffness of such material and its relatively light weight. I have found, for example, that a laminated material comprising a center ply 17 of wood flanked by upper and lower plies .18 and 19 made of a plastic composition has the desired characteristics of strength, rigidity, light weight, workability, and smooth, hard exterior surface. One form of such material is commercially available, being sold under the trade name Plyron. I have found that such material having a thickness of three-eighths of an inch and formed of three plies, each one-eighth of an inch thick, is eminently suitable for making the bed 10 in all of the relatively small sizes commonly required.

The bed 10 is preferably given length and width dimensions a few inches larger than the corresponding dimensions of the sheets of stock to be imprinted by use of the For ordinary commercial work I have found that a bed size of approximately twelve inches by sixteen inches provides an adequately large bed surface, While at the same time presenting length and width dimensions which are sufficiently small to allow the device to be stored in a small space when not in use.

The stop members 11, 12, and 13 may conveniently take the form of flat straps having a length appropriate to the dimensions of the bed as is represented in Fig. l, and having a thickness of the order of one-eighth of an inch.

As before stated, the stop members 11, 12, 13, and the carrier 15, are adjustably secured to the bed 10. To this end I provide in the upper surface of the bed 10 a pair of T-slots and 21. The T-slots 20 and 21 preferably extend across the width of the bed 10 at right angles to the long edges thereof, and are spaced equal distances on opposite sides of the transverse center line of the bed. The T-slots 20 and 21 may be spaced apart any convenient distance, but are preferably spaced only a matter of a few inches, for example, from four to six inches.

The slots 20 and 21 are used to adjustably mount the stop member 12 and the carrier 15, and similar pairs of T-slots 22, 23 and 24, 25 are used in connection with the stop members 11 and 13. The pairs of slots 22, 23 and 24, 25 are identical with the slots 20 and 21, and are preferably spaced apart the same distances. The latter pairs of slots, however, are extended at right angles to the direction of the slots 20 and 21, and are terminated short of intersecting with the latter slots.

The adjustable securing means for the stop member 13 is illustrated in detail in Fig. 4, and it will be under stood that a like mechanism is used for the stop members 11 and 12 and, as will be pointed out hereinafter, also for the carrier 15. The adjustable securing means includes a pair of sliders 26 and 27, one for each of the two slots of a given pair. The sliders 26, 27 are of rectangular form, having width and thickness dimensions selected to make a freely-sliding fit within the bottom cross bar portion of the T-slots. The sliders are made of sufficient length to freely slide within the slots without turning or binding, and are preferably given a length approximately double their width.

From the center of each of the sliders 26 and 27 a threaded stud 28 extends upwardly to pass through the narrow upper portion of the T-slot, and through appropriate openings 29 provided in opposite ends of the stop member 13. The studs 28 may be secured to the sliders 26, 27 in any suitable fashion, as by soldering or riveting. Nuts 30, which are preferably knurled to facilitate manipulation by hand, are threadedly received upon the upstanding ends of the studs 28 so that by manipulation of the nuts 30, the stop member 13 may be securely clamped to the upper surface of the bed 10, the sliders 26, 27 being drawn upwardly into clamping engagement with the underside of that portion of the material of the bed 10 which overhangs the wide part of the T-slots, or loosened to allow the stop members to be slid lengthwise of the T-slots to any desired position and there locked in place by tightening the nuts 30. To facilitate accurate positioning of the stop members 1113, the upper surface of the bed 10 may be inscribed with appropriate scales, as is indicated, for example, by the reference character 31 in Fig. l.

The carrier 15 is preferably mounted upon a supporting strap 32 which is preferably identical with the stop members 1113 and which is adjustably mounted upon the bed 10 in a manner identical to the above-described adjustable mounting of the stop members 1113. The carrier 15 may comprise a pair of arms 33 and34 held in spaced parallel relation to each other by means of a cross member 35 extending between the arms 33 and 34 and suitably secured thereto as by means of rivets 36. The lower ends of the arms 33 and 34 are pivotally secured to the supporting strap 32 for rotation about a horizontal axis extending parallel to the length of the strap 32 as, for example, bv means of loose rivets 37 which are passed through suitable apertures provided in the lower ends of the arms 33 and 34 and similar apertures provided in the upstanding portions of a pair of angle brackets 38 secured, as for example, by spot welding to the upper surface of the strap 32.

The upper ends of the arms 33 and 34 are turned outwardly as at 39, and downwardly as indicated at 40, to define downwardly-facing U-shaped upper portions. The arms of these U-shaped portions are provided with aligned apertures for loosely receiving a pair of pivot pins 41 and 42, the pins 41 and 42 being held in any adjusted position in which they may be placed by means of thumb screws 43 threadedly engaging a suitably tapped opening in the outwardly-turned portions 39 and so located as to permit the lower end of the thumb screws to be brought into clamping engagement with the upper surface of the pivot pins 41 and 42.

The pivot pins 41 and 42 are used to mount the plate 14 on the carrier 15 and to provide for relative rotation between the carrier and the plate so that the plate may be held against rotation while the carrier is rotated in the manner hereinbefore described with reference to Fig. 2. In this connection it will be appreciated that the plate 14 may constitute any suitable form of printing device as, for example, the cast or stamped metal plates commonly used with automatic addressing machines or a plurality of lines of cast metal type appropriately secured to each other. Also, and preferably, the plate 14 constitutes a conventional rubber stamp consisting of a block 44 usually formed of wood and having extending from the upper surface thereof the aforementioned handle 16, the type constituting a sheet 45 of rubber suitably secured as by means of an adhesive to the undersurface of the block 44 and having formed therein by any of the suitable well known processes the type faces of the plurality of characters making up the material to be imprinted upon the sheet of stock. It will be understood that alternatively, the rubber stamp may be of the endless movable band type commonly encountered in date stamps, or may comprise a suitable holder for individual pieces of rubber type which are hand set to print the desired material.

When the machine of this invention is intended to be used with a rubber stamp of the type illustrated including the wood block 44, the pivot pins 41 and 42 are preferably sharpened at their inner ends as shown at 46. These sharp points may then be forced into the wood block 44 a small distance and thus provide a conical pivot and seat type of pivotal attachment of the block 44 to the carrier 15. I have found that by springing the arms 33 and 34 outwardly when the thumb screws 43 are tightened, the resilience of the arms 33 and 34 maintains a firm engagement between the sharpened points 46 and the conical seats formed in the wood block 44 and automatically compensates for any wear in the conical seat during operation of the machine.

It will be seen that by appropriately adjusting the positions of the stop members 1113 and the base strap 32, the machine may be adjusted to cause the inked impression to occupy substantially any desired position on a sheet of stock placed on the bed 10 and moved into an indexed position as defined by the stop members. In this connection it will be observed that the carrier 15 may be mounted at either end of the slots 20 and 21, or

alternatively may be interchanged with one of the end stop members 11 or 13. It will also be observed that during the operation of the device, the movement of the printing plate 14 is accurately guided and controlled to insure that the inked impression will always be made at the same location relative to the bed 10. In this connection, attention is directed to the fact that while the printing plate 14 is guided and controlled in its reciprocal movement between the inking position and the printing position, the pivotal mounting of the plate 14 allows the plate to be held against rotation, or alternatively in the printing position to be oscillated or rocked slightly if desired, thus permitting an operator to obtain a clear, uniform inked impression upon each operation of the machine.

From the foregoing it will be observed that I have provided a printing machine of extremely simple construction which is small. compact, and light-weight, and so arranged as to permit the machine to be manufactured at low cost. It will be noted that the rubber stamp or other type plate may be removed and replaced with a different plate very easily by merely releasing one or both of the thumb screws 43. Attention is directed particularly to the arrangement of the T-slots 20-25 and the mechanism used for adjustably securing the adjustable members to the bed 10, as these features provide a maximum of flexibility in arrangement and adjustment to permit the machine to be used with various sizes and types of sheet stock and to be used to make the inked impression at substantially any location on the selected sheet.

While in the foregoing a preference has been expressed for certain types of materials and for certain sizes and dimensions, it will be understood that other materials and other sizes and dimensions may be used without departing from the spirit of this invention. While I have shown and described in the foregoing the preferred embodiment of my invention, the same is not to be limited to the details illustrated and described, except as defined in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. In a printing machine for producing successive inked impressions in like predetermined locations on each of a plurality of sheets of stock, the combination of: a flat bed defining a hard smooth upper surface for receiving and supporting one of said sheets, said bed having formed in the upper surface thereof a plurality of pairs of parallel inverted T-slots, one of said pairs being extended substantially at right angles to another of said pairs, said slots being identical and the slots of each of said pairs being spaced given identical distances from each other; an adjustable stop member for at least one of said pairs of slots for engagement by the edges of said sheet to position said sheet in a predetermined location relative to said bed, said stop member comprising a slider for each of said slots, each of said sliders being received in the wider cross bar portion of said slot and slidable therealong, a threaded stud secured to each of said sliders extending upwardly therefrom through the narrower portion of said slot and terminating above the upper surface of said bed, a flat strap member having openings in the opposite ends thereof through which said studs extend, and clamping nuts on said studs for clamping said strap member immovably to said bed in any location to which it may be moved by movement of said sliders; a printing plate carrying type faces disposed in a plane and defining the material to be imprinted on said sheet; a carrier for said printing plate; mounting means mounting said carrier on said bed for reciprocal movement of said plate carried thereby between a printing position in which said type faces engage a sheet of stock supported by said bed and an inking position disposing said plate at one side of said bed in a location to bring said type faces into engagement with an inking device placed along said one side of said bed; and adjustment means coacting with said mounting means and mounting said carrier for adjusting movement relative to said bed to thereby adjust the location of said printing position, said adjustment means comprising a supporting strap on which said carrier is mounted and having openings in the opposite ends thereof, together with another pair of said sliders, studs, and nuts, whereby said carrier may be interchanged with any of said stop members.

2. In a printing machine for producing successive inked impressions in like predetermined locations on each of a plurality of sheets of stock, the combination of: a fiat bed defining a hard smooth upper surface for receiving and supporting one of said sheets, said bed having formed in the upper surface thereof a plurality of pairs of parallel inverted T-slots, one of said pairs being extended substantially at right angles to another of said pairs, said slots being identical and the slots of each of said pairs being spaced given identical distances from each other; an adjustable stop member for at least one of said pairs of slots for engagement by the edges of said sheet to position said sheet in a predetermined location relative to said bed, said stop member comprising a slider for each of said slots, each of said sliders being received in the wider cross bar portion of said slot and being slidable therealong, a threaded stud secured to each of said sliders extending upwardly therefrom through the narrower portion of said slot and terminating above the upper surface of said bed, a flat strap member having openings in the opposite ends thereof through which said studs extend, and clamping nuts on said studs for clamping said strap member immovably to said bed in any location to which it may be moved by movement of said sliders; a carrier adapted to engage and support a printing plate carrying type faces disposed in a plane and defining the material to be imprinted on said sheet; mounting means mounting said carrier on said bed for reciprocal movement of said plate carried thereby between a printing position in which said type faces engage a sheet of stock supported by said bed and an inking position disposing said plate at one side of said bed in a location to bring said type faces into engagement with an inking device placed along said one side of said bed; and adjustment means coacting with said mounting means and mounting said carrier for adjusting movement relative to said bed to thereby adjust the location of said printing position, said adjustment means comprising a supporting strap on which said carrier is mounted and having openings in the opposite ends thereof, together with another pair of said sliders, studs, and nuts, whereby said carrier may be interchanged with any of said stop members.

3. In a printing machine for producing successive inked impressions in like predetermined locations on each of a plurality of sheets of stock, the combination of: a flat bed defining a hard smooth upper surface for receiving and supporting one of said sheets; a plurality of stop members on said bed for engagement by the edges of said sheet to position said sheet in a predetermined location relative to said bed; adjustable mounting means mounting said stop members for adjusting movement relative to said bed to adjust said predetermined location; locking means co-acting with said mounting means for holding said stop members in any adjusted positions in which they may be placed; a printing plate carrying type faces disposed in a plane and defining the material to be imprinted on said sheet; a carrier for said printing plate; a support. mounting said carrier for reciprocal movement of said plate relative to said bed between a printing position in which said type faces engage a sheet of stock supported by said bed and an inking position disposing said plate at a location spaced from said printing position to bringsaid type faces into engagement with an inking device placed at said location; another adjustable mounting means mounting said support for adjusting movement relative to said bed to adjust the location of said printing position; and another locking means co-acting with said other mounting means for holding said support in any adjusted position in which it may be placed, all of said mounting means being identical and all of said locking means being identical, whereby said support may be interchanged with any of said stop members.

4. In a printing machine for producing successive inked impressions in like predetermined locations on each of a plurality of sheets of stock, the combination of: a flat bed defining a hard smooth upper surface for receiving and supporting one of said sheets; a plurality of stop members on said bed for engagement by the edges of said sheet to position said sheet in a predetermined location relative to said bed; adjustable mounting means mounting said stop members for adjusting movement relative to said bed to adjust said predetermined location; locking means co-acting with said mounting means for holding said stop members in any adjusted positions in which they may be placed; a carrier adapted to engage and support a printing plate carrying type faces disposed in a plane and defining the material to be imprinted on said sheet; a support mounting said carrier for reciprocal movement of said plate relative to said bed between a printing position in which said type faces engage a sheet of stock supported by said bed and an inking position disposing said plate at a location spaced from said printing position to bring said type faces into engagement with an inking device placed at said location; another adjustable mounting means mounting said support for adjusting movement relative to said bedv to adjust the location of said printing position; and another locking means co-actiug with said other mounting means for holding said support in any adjusted position in which it may be placed, all of said mounting means being identical and all of said locking means being identical, whereby said support may be interchanged with any of said stop members.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 136,458 Rountree Mar. 4, 1873 316,835 Schoenleber Apr. 28, 1885 1,291,026 Koehler Jan. 14, 1919 1,337,591 Clark Apr. 20, 1920 1,395,897 Berkowitz Nov. 1, 1921 FOREIGN PATENTS 464,357 Great Britain Apr. 16, 1937 

